Design To Blend Dale G. Jones Director of Creative Design IdentityMine, Inc.

Session Prerequisites Microsoft Expression Design Microsoft Expression Blend Adobe Fireworks FW to XAML Exporter l_panel.html l_panel.html

Session Objectives and Agenda Reduce fear about designing for WPF. Show real world workflow from concept to XAML. Provide a brief overview of the tools I use. Get Creative Designers excited about WPF.

Who Am I? Dale Jones Director of Creative Design IdentityMine, Inc. I lead a team of creative designers that build exciting solutions on new Microsoft UX Platforms (WPF & Silverlight). Designing for the web (8 years) Designing for WPF (2 years)

Where I Work IdentityMine, Inc. Tacoma, WA USA

Why Do We Need Designers? Users are expecting better application experiences. Developers are excellent at making it work, but they don’t care about visual details. The best applications are developed when there is collaboration between Designers & Developers.

What’s In It For You? With WPF it is possible to maintain design integrity throughout the application development process. Your applications can be taken further than in past technologies. Developers are now your friends!

Demo Reel

How Do We Create These Apps? UXFlow

It Starts With The Team Designer graphics, media, color, UX, UI Developer data, logic, code

But Wait A Second… Designer graphics, media, color, UX, UI Developer data, logic, code ? layout, animation, events, integration

The Team With An Integrator Designer graphics, media, color, UX, UI Developer data, logic, code Integrator layout, animation, events, integration

The Team & Tools

What Ties Us Together?

XAM L

These Roles Are Rigid  I am a designer and love to play with markup, where do I fit in? Our company is small, we can’t staff this way. What do we do?

Roles Reflect Project Responsibilities The tasks to build a successful application don’t change based on the people performing the tasks. One person may have to share role responsibilities to accomplish all project tasks.

I Am A Designer For the purpose of this presentation I am going to be the designer, and show you how designers work at IdentityMine.

I Am Assuming… That you have a basic understanding of: - Windows Presentation Foundation - Expression Design - Expression Blend - Adobe Fireworks CS3 - Basic XAML Understanding these tools/technologies are the keys to “Designing to Blend”.

What This Session Is Not A complete discussion about the WPF Platform Extensive XAML Overview Custom controls Resource Dictionaries Styles Templates

Expression Design Prototyping and Composition Design. A few nice features that other design programs don’t have. Very nice XAML exporter. Lets go take a look.

Expression Design Examples CCE Centricity Enterprise Microsoft Dynamics Sure Step LSTV Super Shipper Vista Deployment Roxio CSS

Expression Design Walkthrough Creating a new file Finding Palettes Setting up preferences Working with the tools Open file and export some XAML

Expression Blend Draw and assemble design assets. Build up layout structure. Bind to data. Lets go take a look.

Expression Blend Creating a new project Finding Palettes Introduction to layout tools Working with the built in controls Bring in Exported XAML

Adobe Design Tools Adobe Photoshop – Great design tool, however no way to export XAML. Adobe Illustrator – Has an exporter, but I don’t use it. Adobe Fireworks CS3 – We have a winner!

Adobe Fireworks CS3 Fireworks has its roots in web and RIA design. It is an outstanding tool to develop vector based graphics. Fireworks integrates bitmap graphics very well into its design surface.

Building Design Comps in Fireworks Fireworks is an outstanding tool to design application UI for client approval. It allows for designer to separate UI design into “Pages”. Pages contain their own layers set. This allows designers to design exact “states” of the applications and export for client approval. Once that approval has been given, Fireworks exports XAML assets. This is a great time saver over other tools/platforms.

Adobe Fireworks CS3 Examples Aspiring Architects DinnerNow.net MOG CSS

These examples are ok, but how do I get XAML out of this? ?

Fireworks to XAML Panel Extension for Fireworks built by Infragistics Download it here: rks/articles/fw_xaml_panel.html Lets see it in action

Export Something

Export Settings – Output Tab Output Tab Settings Export Images – I don’t export images from Fireworks here. Fill Textures (using images) – I tend to stay away from this. Pattern Fills (using images) – I try to stay away from this. Bitmap Effects – not a good idea, hurts app performance Text Options – Exporting Text works pretty well. Exporting text on a path should be converted to Paths.

Export Settings – XAML Options XAML Options Tab Settings Grid or Canvas – depends on how you need your XAML. Silverlight XAML needs Canvas export. Convert Rectangles to Borders – most of the time this is checked. Element Names – Good idea to name layered groups. Export Fills As Resources – Unchecked - Usually I set up my resource dictionaries before I export from Fireworks.

Getting XAML into Blend The purpose of compositing design elements in Fireworks/Design is the ability to export XAML pieces. Know what to export and what to rebuild in Blend.

XAML Composition in Blend Layout First – look at your design comps and decide which panels to use to hold your design elements together. Grid, Canvas, StackPanel, etc. Once you understand basic layout, start inserting some exported XAML.

Can I Just Use Blend? Blend is extremely powerful and capable of doing most design tasks. My creative process utilizes a Design program first, this allows me to collaborate with clients without thinking too much about the implementation of XAML I have found it easier to work in the design tool I am familiar with and then composite XAML in Blend. Work with what feels right to you, but still gets the job done.

Got Questions? Hopefully I have answers…

What Now? As a designer, you should be pretty excited about the possibilities of WPF. The next step is to find an equally excited Developer and start building some beautiful applications!

Thanks For Coming My Site: Work Site:

Resources Microsoft Expression Design ?key=design ?key=design Microsoft Expression Blend ?key=blend ?key=blend Adobe Fireworks CS3 Fireworks to XAML Exporter el.html el.html Required slide: Please customize this slide with the resources relevant to your session

Resources Technical Communities, Webcasts, Blogs, Chats & User Groups Microsoft Learning and Certification Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN) & TechNet Trial Software and Virtual Labs ult.mspx ult.mspx New, as a pilot for 2007, the Breakout sessions will be available post event, in the TechEd Video Library, via the My Event page of the website Required slide: Please customize this slide with the resources relevant to your session MSDN Library Knowledge Base Forums MSDN Magazine User Groups Newsgroups E-learning Product Evaluations Videos Webcasts V-labs Blogs MVPs Certification Chats learn support connect subscribe Visit MSDN in the ATE Pavilion and get a FREE 180-day trial of MS Visual Studio Team System!

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